Sudbury-on-Sea (N gauge)

[mika]

Hi,

after ages of just reading in this forum, I thought I could finally present my layout 'Sudbury-on-Sea'.

Sudbury-on-Sea is (supposed to be) a small seaside town in Hampshire. It once had a ferry connection to a nearby island but after freight traffic on that island was handed over to lorries and a new ferry terminal was opened, the ferry-port at Sudbury became redundant. The line to Sudbury, however, still serves the harbour and the small city terminus, which is located right at the promenade.
SouthWest Trains run an hourly service to Salisbury, morning and afternoon trains go directly to Waterloo. 2-car Turbostars (class 170) are sufficient for the traffic.

As I do not have too much space to spare the layout should fit into a relatively small box of 77cm x 22cm which is *go get calculator* roughly 30'' x 8.7''. This is the plan I came up with:


and for more detail:


As you see the layout has actually two lines: the passenger line at the back and the freight line at the front. The freight line can be used as an inglenook shunting puzzle.

More pictures to show my progress:







paper mock-up of the road overbridge, which is going to disguise the entrance to the fiddle yard



SWT 170 at the platform (corpus)


the painted platform in situ


Father Christmas gave me the two Peco coal wagons and the Peco milk tank


an enthusiast's special headed by Jubilee 45689 'Mars'


aerial view shows the special with the Jubilee, a class 37 in the siding, and some wagons at the harbour

So much for now. Thanks for looking. Comments always welcome.

Michael

[siquelme]

Layout is looking great

I do love those South West Turbostars great little trains in real life

[Zebra]

An excellent little layout.
Very interesting.

[mika]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

Two pictures to show what Sudbury looks like after I tried my luck with ballasting:


from the waterside


aerial view

Today saw me experimenting with my self-made electrostatic ... thing . Oh, and I started building a tree. Pics are still on my camera, will post them tomorrow(ish).

Thanks for looking.

Michael

[siquelme]

Layout looks good

Will you be building a ferry to go on it?

[mika]

Thought about building one and using it as a wagon lift to enhance operational possibilities. I found a free paper model on the internet, but building it is still on my to-do-list...

thx,
Michael

[mika]

Hi all,

copied the pics from my camera. here they are:


my electrostatic thing (still no idea what it is called in English )


and this is what I have done with it. I know it isn't much, but I wanted to test it on a small area first. Looks quite effective, what do you say?


For my first ever self-built tree I cut wires to length (20 at about 6''). They became the trunk, twisted at the bottom part:


(the smiling observer, by the way, is my cuppa )


This is what I came up with after much bending (and equally much criticism by my wife).


The tree skeleton was then painted with a mixture of brown paint, PVA, and scatter to imitate the bark. Then left it to dry over night.
I am not yet sure about how to add the green stuff. I do have green bits of spongy scatter and thought about using this. However, I do not know whether the canopy will look dense enough.

Oh, and if your interested in the ferry I thought about using, it can be downloaded for free from here (in 1/160!): http://www.conys-modellbau.de/download.html

That's all for now. Thanks for looking and commenting.

Michael

[siquelme]

Layout is taking shape What you planning to fill the gap between the tracks with?

[StevieDay]

Nice start to the layout Michael & I like the frame work to the tree. Which gave me a thought & maybe of interest to you. Trees by the sea can often have a wind swept appearance & you can achieve this with the method you're using.

Photo deleted 04/01/13

[mika]

What you planning to fill the gap between the tracks with?

Well, TBH i have no idea yet. Initially i thought about just grassing it up, but your question made me hesitate. I'll have a look at some photos and Potsdam railway station and with that knowledge pay my local model shop a visit to buy some appropriate scatter. Then add some weed and a bit grass and see what it looks like .

@Steve: Thanks for the hint. As someone who lives almost 200 miles from the coast I tend to forget that trees don't always look as neat as here . I just tried to re-bend it and I think it looks better now. Will post a picture soon.

Michael

[mika]

Hi all,

first of all I wanted to show my re-bent tree:




Then I started my new project: a small trainshed. The first pictures show a mock-up made of plastic parts from an old Faller kit (which will also be used in the real one), match sticks, and some play dough :





Please note that the walls on the right are not yet glued into space .



Next I practised my soldering skills and came up with this:





And finally two pictures showing the trainshed-to-be in situ with the glass roof put temporarily into space:





Next task is to paint the trainshed skeleton. And then I have to decide whether the gables (is this the right term?) should be made of iron and glass (which would mean I have to buy new tin-solder) or of brick-work. What do you say?
That's all for now. Comments, questions, approval, and criticism always welcome.
Thanks for looking!

Michael

[mika]

Hi everyone,

not much of an update as we're moving home atm. Nonetheless I wanted to rescue my thread from page 3 , so here comes what I managed to do.



After much cursing the soldering of the trainshed is complete. I still want to hide the blobs of solder with a bit of brass I still have. The whole thing will then be painted. Not sure about the colour yet; thought about light blue. What do you say? The picture also shows my new arrival, a Farish class 150/2 in ATW livery. i got it from my parents for my graduation .
My second new arrival is a bargain from ebay. I got this ex-GWR autocoach for just 5,50€ (which is less than 5 pounds).



Last picture for today is an overall view of Sudbury station and harbour.



Thanks for looking.

Michael

[whoshotjimmi]

Hi,

I have always been a big fan of interesting layouts that show what can be done with very little. Often, potential modellers and hobbyists are put off by the perceived demand and cost whilst, actually, plenty is available to even the most inexperienced modeller with the strictest budget. This layout typifies the philosophy that a good and satisfying end result can be acheived despite limited size and a top job has been done thus far. I very much like your trainshed and I am looking forward to further development on this layout. With regards to brick and iron, I think the real Sudbury, which is an eastern region settlement would utilise brick, but your stock has more of a western flavour where Brunellian Iron would be the order of the day.

James

[cmeonthemove]

What a super little layout. You've managed to squeeze a lot of different details in a very small space, but at the same time not overcrowded it. Hope all is going ok with the house move and look forward to further updates.

[SouthernBoy]

I think you've done well in such a small space - and has already been said - there's plenty of interest without it being overcrowded.

I particularly like this picture ...



The scratch-built train shed works really well, the sloping/curved path from the platform to the road gives extra character/realism, and the way the hard-standing runs at an angle to the tracks all adds up to a visually interesting and individual scene.

Keep the updates coming